Geert Wilders' Plan to Save the West

Diana West's latest column at Townhall.com features an interview with Geert Wilders that she was conducting just moments after the latest outbreak of "extremism" in Canada. Some excerpts are below:

I was near Washington, D.C. interviewing the visiting Geert Wilders, leader of the Netherlands' Party for Freedom, when the news flashed that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the Canadian convert to Islam who terrorized Ottawa on Wednesday, had previously had his passport lifted by the Canadian government as an officially designated "high-risk traveler."

That means that before Zehaf-Bibeau put a bullet through the chest of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a young reservist standing guard with an unloaded rifle at the Canadian National War Memorial, and before Zehaf-Bibeau rushed into the nation's Parliament building, where, thankfully, he was gunned down by security before he could murder again, Canadian authorities had already identified him as someone likely to join the jihad abroad. In fact, so likely was Zehaf-Bibeau to join a group such as ISIS, Canadian authorities did what many Western governments are doing in the name of counter-terrorism: They took Zehaf-Bideau's passport away.

"That's the same as the other one!" Wilders notes energetically, referring to Martin Couture-Rouleau, also an Islamic convert and "high-risk traveler," who drove his car into two Canadian soldiers in Quebec earlier in the week, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Couture-Rouleau, who was shot dead at the scene of his crime, had had his passport taken from him in July when he was arrested at the airport before he could travel to Turkey.

In other words, but for good Canadian police work, it looks as if both of these murderers would have left Canada and disappeared into the bloody maw of the Islamic State. Phew — that was close?

No, that was insane. Such a policy, which the Dutch government also follows, frustrates Wilders to no end.

"Let them leave," says Wilders. "Let them leave, or detain them. I find it incomprehensible that Western governments stop people who want to leave to fight for jihad in Syria or Iraq." Let them go and never let them return, he says, or with sufficient evidence, detain them. While the West combats the Islamic State, he points out, "nothing is being done to make our own countries safe."

Wilders supports the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State, and is proud that Dutch F-16s are flying combat missions. He points out, however, that military action in the Middle East is "not an excuse not to do anything domestically."

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